Best-in-class manufacturing ops

At Heineken South Africa and Microsoft Europe, efficiency-minded suppliers help make processing and packaging logical extensions of each other.

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Let’s start with Krones, a German firm with age-old roots in the beer and spirits industries that more recently has blossomed in the juice, water, dairy, and carbonated beverage industries. Its latest area of interest is in the IT space, and much of Krones’ emphasis has been on tightly knitting together not just processing and packaging but even raw ingredient handling and logistics.

Heineken’s new Sedibeng brewery, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, is a good example of what Krones has been up to. From processing, to packaging, to a full-coverage Manufacturing Execution System (MES) interfaced with Heineken’s own SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the Sedibeng Brewery is a model of tightly integrated manufacturing methods.

To meet Heineken’s requirements, Krones developed the software for a route management system. The DynaRoute intelligent route management system, deployed here for the first time, controls the flow of beer from the tank farm to the packaging lines. The routing algorithm uses the source and destination specified to automatically compute all paths and parameters required for any desired product-transfer operation, including all upstream processing and downstream packaging operations.

Production planning is done by the SAP ERP system, and when production orders emerge from the ERP system, they are automatically split into a processing order and a packaging order. The packaging orders are sent automatically to each individual machine so that each is automatically parameterized for the next run. Printing devices—ink-jet printers or pallet labelers, for example—are automatically adjusted. And displayed on the HMI screens throughout the packaging lines is information not only on what the current production order is but also what the next one will be, so operators are constantly aware of what they need to prepare.

IT components at the Sedibeng plant include MES Beer Production and MES Packaging. Both have standard interfaces like B2MML or XML to permit fluid communication with the ERP system above them.

The MES is between ERP and the plant floor. ERP communicates with MES, which in turn tells the PLCs out on the plant floor what needs to be done, just as it’s defined in S95, the international standard for the integration of enterprise and control systems. Part of the Krones MES Beer Production solution is a module called OPI (Operational Performance Indicator). The performance of the brewhouse and filtration processes are monitored by the MES and rendered quantifiable as an OPI, one of Heineken’s specific corporate variables. The tracking and tracing functionality of the MES also enables batches to be completely tracked, from the bright beer tank to the grain intake. The MES Packaging software module for the filling and packaging section was developed on the basis of empirical feedback from a Heineken installation that took place about two years ago in Sevilla, Spain. It consists of the Krones LMS (Line Management System), plus the Krones production data acquisition system LDS (Line Documentation System), in which all important production and process data are recorded and easily accessed for analysis.

Processing is completely integrated with packaging through the controls system. The LMS communicates with MES Beer Production so that, in effect, the packaging lines automatically ask the processing systems which tank do I draw from? This way the right beer goes to the right filler at the right time, and it’s done with so little operator involvement that the chance for operator error is greatly reduced. This represents a significant improvement over more conventional process-to-packaging interfaces, where readying a filling line for the next production order would be done with much more operator involvement. An operator might have had to pull up a menu on the filler’s HMI screen and pick the tank from which beer is to be drawn. Or pipes might have had to be switched manually, based on production order information communicated on paper, or clipboard, or dry erase board.

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